Marionette
by Silent-Vociferation
Summary: The Dragonborn was no marionette. She did not dance to the whims of others. She did not sway this and that, whichever way the puppeteers asked. Did she? Onmund wasn't sure anymore.


Look! I finally got around to another one of the prompts. Still half a month to go though. Whoops.

The Dovakhiin is left nameless so that you can pretend she's yours. For the most part. My portrayal of the Dovakhiin tends to have certain preferences depending on the story you read, particularly magical preferences.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Elder Scrolls series.

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She was Thane of every city in Skyrim, housecarls waiting her return at each gate that they might assist her. They rarely did, as Onmund was usually close behind her, extinguishing the lightning from his fingers after some near-death experience she had decided to share with him. Traveling with the Dragonborn was an honor, but to many it came with several catches. One was that monsters, bandits, and dragons alike were all inexplicably drawn to her. 'Dovakhiin' was not painted boldly on her skin, she wore no particularly recognizable armor, and it was not that her horse or companion were notable in any fashion. And yet, despite such ordinary aspects, creatures deemed the Dragonborn extraordinary. They swarmed to her with claws bared, arrows flying, teeth gnashing, whatever the weapon was. But as they so predictably appeared, they just as predictably fell to the Dovakhiin and the Destruction mage.

Yes, many considered the constant risk of life and limb to be a drawback, but Onmund translated it into unique experiences that no one else would share with her. A selfish thought, perhaps, but there were few feelings greater than the one that came over him when he saw her stand after looking over a slain foe. It was a slow transition from kneeling to standing, complete with an unconscious flexing of every visible muscle as she exhaled softly. There was always a brief silence before she inhaled again. Her back would straighten, the subtlest of arches there in her spine, and soft words for the dead would fall from her lips. He wasn't sure if she was particularly religious, but her wishes for the deceased were always sincere and thoughtful if the look in her eyes had anything to say about it.

Many could claim that they had fought beside the Dragonborn, but Onmund was the only one who could say he fought _with_ her, with this girl who was much more than the title given to her by the Greybeards. Because while many could recount how she switched with ease from fire to axe to bow and arrow, Onmund was the only one who could recall with awe how her eyes flickered from one monster to the next as she switched weapons, mapping out her steps so that she could dance from the decapitated yeti at her feet to the back of the next to the flank of another before firing at one more in the distance.

Those who claimed the monster encounters were drawbacks to the Dragonborn had no idea. There was nothing quite like disassembling the skeleton of a dragon with the Dovakhiin as she sang some tavern melody to the wind. She was always a little sharp until she hit the high notes, in which case she was slightly flat. Onmund was comfortable enough to tell her so, and she would laugh and insist that if he wanted to hear real music he would need to open his own mouth.

"I never should have gone drinking with you," he would say to her without missing a beat.

"My ears! Imagine their poor existence having never heard you sing!" She'd always find some unique way of phrasing her love for his voice. No compliment ever had the same wording.

"But imagine how much happier you would be having never seen me drunk," he'd retaliate.

"You clearly have never seen yourself drunk." That statement puzzled him for weeks, because their debate on his singing always ended the same way. "You clearly have never seen yourself drunk." What did that even mean?

Well, one day Onmund found out what the Thane of all Skyrim's cities was referring to.

"What did I do?" Onmund was rather poor at sneaking, but luckily they had cleared out the cavern and he was permitted to trip and slide and, in that instance, shout as much as he wanted.

"You sang," she retorted with a wistful smile on her face, her fingers tracing the contours of the cave wall.

"Well of course, you won't let me forget I sang the _one_ time I drank ale in front of you, but come now! You are hiding something from me!"

She giggled. "Perhaps I am."

"Tell me, I beg of you!"

The Dragonborn had paused, spun on her heel, and pranced over to him so that they stood inches apart, catching him off guard as most of her actions did. Rarely anything was predictable with her. "You sang," she repeated in a whisper, eyes falling to his chest. It wasn't possible that she could see how fast his heart was beating. It couldn't be possible. But Onmund felt it was in that instance. "And I was the subject."

He said nothing, instead waiting with baited breath, feeling as if the cave was suddenly filling with water, water that froze the instant it touched you.

"According to the song," she continued, drawing her hand up so that her fingers could press against his chest, "you have feelings for me... But it could just be a song."

"It isn't." Damn. He should not have been so quick to say something so idiotic. So intent on berating himself, he didn't notice her fingertips tense against him. "It... I mean... I..." What was Onmund supposed to say? "I have wanted to court you ever since you returned my amulet. I didn't even ask and yet you..." No, wait, he needed to stop right there before he really said something stupid.

Her fingers loosened again, and she stared at his chest intently as her fingers began to spread wide. Her palm pressed into him, just above his heart. Seeing someone's heart race was not possible, but there was no doubt in his mind that she could feel it in that moment.

"Is... I'm sorry if that makes things strange between us... I would... completely understand if you don't want to... travel with me anymore."

Her hand stayed where it was over his heart as the other moved to cup his face, tilting it down as she angled her own face upwards. The ice he had felt in the cave shattered. "Never." It didn't occur to him at the time that the word was a promise to him. He was a little distracted considering she was kissing him, gently and overflowing with patience as he melted into her.

To him there were no catches when it came to traveling with the Dragonborn.

At least not at first.

Things changed when she finally purchased a home, claiming that it would be nice for her and Onmund to have somewhere familiar to settle for a night during their travels. Somewhere they didn't have to pay or deal with rowdy tavern guests when they were especially tired. Many of the innkeepers were pleasant, welcoming, and understanding, but they could not promise the same of their guests. The implications of having a place for _Onmund and her_ to stay did not go over the mage's head. For the first few days they chose to rest at her house in Whiterun he'd struggled to speak to her without flushing because he had no idea how to deal with this new situation. Camping together had always seemed so innocent, even if they were pressed against each other, lips on lips, hands wandering. Alright, camping together hadn't seemed extremely innocent, but living together - even for a few days - in a house that was their's - well, the Dragonborn's - suggested a whole new level of... well, something.

Even so, Onmund should have not put so much thought into it. He should have spent those few days in Whiterun speaking to her constantly, escorting her everywhere, because it was after that small handful of days that he lost her.

Not to dragons, not to cultists, not to assassins.

He lost her to politics.

Purchasing a house in Whiterun had evidently implied favoritism for the city, and the other Jarls were not pleased. She was suddenly running back and forth on her ebony mare, one Jarl to the next, trying to appease them by performing their tasks and advising them in their decisions. Confidential business, Thanes only, Onmund not allowed.

A part of him wanted to return to the College of Winterhold, but the rest of him knew that the Dragonborn would not return to him there. How would she know? He loved her too much to go elsewhere.

Some days she returned, but those days were scattered throughout months. Any other lover would have feared her complaints about the political business she suddenly found herself caught up in, but Onmund knew she never would.

"And so she becomes the marionette of the Jarls," Vilkas noted as he watched her run by on her horse, heading for the gates on some other political endeavor.

"Don't say that," Onmund hissed, eyes lingering on the spot in the window where she had just been.

Vilkas snorted, pressing a tankard to his lips. "You don't want the truth? She's become their puppet, and they will make her dance until their sides are sore and their pockets are overflowing with more gold than usual."

Onmund may have started to seek out the Companions because they were his lover's friends - and perhaps because he was unbearably lonely with her gone so often - but he was beginning to regret this decision. They welcomed him because he was her shield lover. While not a member of the Companions, he journeyed with their beloved shield sister when they could not, protected her emotionally when they could only brandish their weapons. Because of this the Companions allowed his presence and spoke to him, mostly of the Dovkhiin but sometimes of other things they had in common. Shield lover. It was a phrase that sounded very made up but also a phrase Onmund wasn't prepared to argue with. His loneliness at work, no doubt. Still, the longer his lover was gone, the more bitter some of the Companions turned, and Onmund certainly didn't appreciate it.

"She dances for no one," Onmund insisted.

"Her new house in Riften says otherwise."

The mage gritted his teeth. "She's been called away on Thane business often there. It's a financially wise decision."

"Sounds like one of the puppeteers is testing how tight he can pull his set of strings. How skilled will he get? Some of the guards are wondering when one of the Jarls will figure out how to make their precious marionette bend over and scream as they fu-"

Onmund punched Vilkas right in the jaw before pinning him to the table, scattering plates and goblets through the hall.

"She is no one's marionette, do you understand? She dances for no one, and she _bends over_ for _no one_. Shame on you for speaking ill of your shield sister who has had you back since day one, has protected and saved you and your brother as many times as you have her. She deserves a lot more faith than what you have shown in her. And if you are to disrespect her, do it to her face that she may defend herself. I can't do her justice."

"I know," Vilkas murmured.

Onmund pulled back, surprised. "Do you? Then why did you-"

"I told you. Guards had these thoughts, not me, but I am sure they are not the only ones. Is it fair? Is it what she deserves after all she has done for Skyrim? No. But surely you realize they will think it - and say it - anyway, and they will do so often. You can't deny that, even though she didn't want to, she has become their marionette. They will yank on their strings and they will contort her and rip her away from you. She's strong, so she won't break. I know that. But no puppet can free themselves from so many puppeteers."

Onmund completely removed himself from Vilkas, eyes flashing as he retrieved his pack and slid it over his shoulder. "She is no marionette. Not to the Jarls. Not to anyone," he insisted. And he returned to Breezehome.

Still mad at Vilkas, even if the worst of the words were spoken by guards, Onmund remained at Breezehome for a week. But even when he returned to visit the Companions, even when he ventured out of the city to hone his skills on passing bandits, Vilkas' words echoed in his head. Eventually, he found truth in the statement.

His lover had become a marionette.

He hoped that when she finally returned she would vehemently reject the idea. He wanted her to correct him, to prove him wrong, to show she was still the free and wild and whimsical Dragonborn he had fallen for.

But when she returned, her words were not what Onmund hoped at all.

"Perhaps I am."

She had barely sat down to tend to the fire when he had confronted her. How long had she been home? Ten minutes? He should have waited, should have eased into the conversation after she was fed and rested.

But then she was accepting his accusation with soft words and a faraway look in her eyes and he found himself yelling.

"Perhaps? _Perhaps_? How can you say it so easily? How can you accept this so easily?" The rest of his words rained down on no one in particular because she had already stood once more, opened the door, and exited without another word.

It had been weeks since she had last returned.

She had been home for ten minutes, had spoken three words.

And she was already gone again.

But maybe this time it was less the fault of the Jarls, and more the fault of Onmund.

"Oh no," he murmured, bolting for the door.

Her horse was gone.

"No..." The Dragonborn was always forgiving, forever willing to see it from a different perspective, ready to listen and be patient and tolerate. He had taken this for granted, and now she'd been pushed too far. The first time he had lost her to politics. Somehow, without even getting her back, he had lost her a second time. But this time it was his own idiocy that did so.

How was he going to find her once more?

Onmund had no answer. Having persuaded Lydia to loan him her horse, he rode for weeks, asking friends and Companions he encountered. He attempted to seek out the Jarls, but the guards wouldn't let him through. Any mentioning of the Thane actually got him kicked out instead of simply stopped at the gate. He climbed to the Greybeards and back to Helgen where she had met her first dragon. He ran through the labyrinth and scouted out Bleak Falls Barrow where she had located the first words of the dragons.

No one had seen her.

Onmund didn't blame them. He scoured what he felt was every inch of Skyrim and he hadn't seen her either.

"One last place."

'One last place' translated to Winterhold, where the cold lashed out beneath the hoods of travelers and bit at exposed skin, where the snow raced and whistled on the wind, where the magic of Skyrim hid deep in the College.

"Onmund?" He'd been spotted by Brelyna. "Onmund, what brings you here?"

The Nord mage sighed, taking down his hood as he looked at the Dunmer. "I, well..."

Her red gaze darkens. "You ruined your relationship with her, haven't you."

His face flushed. "I... How did you know? Did she tell you?" His heart started to race and in his eagerness he may have grabbed her shoulders. "Is she _here_?"

For a moment there was a spark in her eyes, but then she frowned, as if realizing she had almost made a mistake. "No." And in under a second she watched him collapse on himself, leaning heavily against the chilled stone wall. "Onmund?"

"I've been everywhere," Onmund admitted in a low rumble. "Everywhere... I... Where could she..."

Brelyna's red gaze softened, and for a moment she smiled, but it flickered away just as fast before Onmund could spy it. "Come. Rest here tonight. You look exhausted."

Exhausted was an understatement. He barely had the energy to bathe, and the moment he was done he returned to the room that was once his and collapsed onto the bed, disregarding all his old trinkets and belongings. There was no room in his head for nostalgia and memories.

"Onmund."

It wasn't Brelyna this time, but J'zhargo.

"What?" he barely breathed out, trying to disguise his irritation.

"The Archmage would like to see you."

Barely registering what was in front of him as he forced his eyes open, Onmund sat up. "Archmage?" The Archmage had died just before the Dovakhiin and Onmund had left the College. The Dragonborn had of course saved the day and straightened everything out, but from there the process for picking the next Archmage was something that had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. During the months Onmund and the Dragonborn were gone, extensive interviews and debates were held to decide who would inherit the position. Who was it now?

"Hello Onmund."

He froze, because despite having not heard that voice for weeks, he knew exactly who it was. "It... It can't..."

The silhouette in his doorway was unmistakable, her face even more so when she stepped in and lit the lantern beside his cot.

She'd returned to him.

"J'zhargo! You lied to me!"

The Khajit gave a discontented huff at that. "What? J'zhargo lie? Please. You asked Brelyna if she was here, not J'zhargo. It was Brelyna who lied, and if you want to know why, J'zhargo will have you know it was under the Archmage's orders. Now if you will excuse me, J'zhargo has places to be." J'zhargo strode away without another word.

"Under the Archmage's..." Onmund opened and closed his mouth, a poor imitation of a suffocating fish. "How?" 'How' was not exactly what he wanted to say. He had hundreds of other words he wanted to add, but they simply weren't making it out of his mouth.

"I am free."

Free?

For several seconds the mage stared at his lover, adorned in the robes of the Archmage, smiling down at him where he sat on his bed.

And then it occurred to him. "You don't mean...?"

"All the strings on this puppet have been severed." She spoke in such a rich and confident voice, one cloaked in power. Before she had been the Thane of all cities, but with the mantle of the Archmage she had somehow transformed. "They have never been able to make me dance to their whims. But I did so willingly, donning strings for their puppeteering. It was as you said. I was no longer moving to my drum, and while realizing this makes defying them unimaginably easier..." There was that giggle of her's, the one that made him melt. She slid the Archmage's hood from her head. "Holding a title equal to their's makes them realize how much weight my actions carry. My actions will not carry their intentions as well."

Onmund wanted to say he was paying attention, but when she removed the hood from her head he spied something glimmering in the light of the lantern, hanging around her neck. Was that-? No, now was not the time for thinking. The last time he had done that, he had lost faith in the love of his life. This time he would not ask if she believed herself to be a puppet. This time he would ask something else entirely.

"Well then, freed marionette, would you do me the honor of answering one more question for me?" As he asked she sat down beside him, pressing her fingers to his chest and pushing him down so that she hovered over him.

"What sort of question are you asking that my very answer would honor you?" she asked in return, her lips quirking as she mimicked his formal air.

There was a thoughtful silence as his fingers slowly graced the surface of her amulet where it hung inches above his torso. "It is very much a question of life and death."

Her gaze flickered to Mara's amulet, watching as he spun it in his grasp. "Is it now?"

"Well marriage usually requires that the two involved love all their lives, until death parts them."

She giggled, playfully yanking the amulet from his grasp. "Well then it really is as you say. But will there be strings attached?" Dangling between her index finger and thumb just above his nose, the amulet spun slowly and caught the light but not his eyes. He was far too intent on returning her gaze.

"Never," he murmured, and that was enough for her, something she made very clear as she pressed her lips to his. She was through with flying to and fro wherever the strings did pull. No more would she dance to the whims of her puppeteers upon their thrones.

If the freed marionette danced, she danced with Onmund at her side, no strings attached.

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Yay, more Onmund/Dovakhiin fanfiction. Reviews, critiques, and comment are much appreciated. Thanks so much for reading!

Sivo


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